The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-11-30
POPULAR SCIENCE,

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ROSY seemed to have been contracted
through vaccination with virus, from a
child in whom the disease subs 'quently
developed. The child was a native Of
the tropics, and feprosy had previously
existed among his relatives.
By the improved method Of welding
by electricity broken bar of metal can
be easily reunited, or bars of different
metals welded together, and those metals
which previously resisted welding most
strenuously, are now joined with ease,
while those previously easily welded re-
main the same by the new process.
Mr.. W. Mattieu Williams thinks that
the instinct which guides the swallow
southwark in autumn is probably of
very practical and unpoetic kind. Its
food is chiefly flying insects, whose
development ceases with the advance of
cold from the north, and in migrating
the bird is simply following its rctreating
food supply.
The gold mines of Australia continue
to be very productive. Some OF them
are more than 1900 feet in depth, and
many will be sunk even lower than that
in the near future. This is contrary to
the predictions of old mining experts,
who said many years ago that no gold
would ever be found in Australia at
greater depth than hundred feet.
There are now cables on almost every
sea and ocean bed, the total length of
wire laid being nearly 1850 nautical
miles. There are nine cables connecting
Europe with America. The first that
was laid dating from 1858. So great.
also, has the advance been in the opera
tive aspect of cable telcgraphy that prac-
tically no more difficulty is felt in repair
ing submarine lines than in attending to
defects in those on land. 1t is seldom
any serious arrangement of telegraphic
system takes place. When it does it is
Of comparatively brief duration.
A surprising ignorance in geographi.
cal matters prevails even among people OF
culture. Many examples of this have
been lately collected by Colonel Sir
Charles Warren. In one case an edu-
Gated surveyor could not free himself of
the idea that Paris was north of London,
and another located the west end of Lon
don toward the eastern coast. Out of
thirty we'll instructed men, from eigh
teen to twenty years old, about eighteen
were under the impression that while
the sun rises in the East, the stars rise in
the West.
An appearance as of being followed
out has been remarked in the surface of
the hard, green sandstone rocks, near
Lima, Peru, and was ascribed by Sir
Charles Lycll to the result of water
action on ancient and subsequently ele-
waited sea beaches. Mr.. Nation, of Lima,
however, who has been observing the
rocks for twenty-five years, is satisfied
that the hollows are increasing in size
and in number. He believes that they
are the work of a cryptogamic plant a
lichen, which is in active vegetation
during the foggy season, the swelling of
whose cells causes a scaling of the rock.
A remarkable case of suspended
growth-power is recorded by DR.. Max.
we'll J. Masters, Of London. A tree of
the common Ailanthus was cut down,
and the stump buried just below the sur
face. Growth appeared, ten years GER
taiuly, probably fifteen years after,
though there had been no sign OF vege-
tation in the intervening period. The
fact is of great Importance in connection
with the maintenance of life in vegetation
for long periods under glaciers. In the
Proceedings of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia for 1884," good
reasons are given for the belief that
plants covered by ice in Alaska for over
one hundred years, still kept alive and
grew after the ice-sheet was removed.
The maintenance of life in Ailanthus
roots ten years without growing, so near
circumstances favorable to growth, is a
greater feat of Nature than the retention
Of life for 100 years under the low tenn
perature beneath glacier.